Comment by rudedogg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rudedogg | Hacker News Reader

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> Radiant floor heating and radiant cooling zones are also in. And run water through Your floors to heat or cool zones. It is one of the most efficient ways to heat a structure and feels good as well.

I think/thought radiant cooling is still pretty "experimental". I think in certain climates it can cause the pipes to "sweat" a lot.

If you want to see some ultra high-end stuff, you can check out this YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrG7oG8Tvp8

Here's their video on radiant cooling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPC0_LxlwIY).

Not sure how to word this - but my understanding is that the stuff on his channel is pretty cutting-edge. Most builders use older/time tested materials and methods. You may get weird looks if you start asking your contractor about the things you see in his videos.

Also, everything is very climate specific. Mini-splits won't work if you're building a home in a very cold climate, etc. If you have the money, there are HVAC engineers that will do a way better job than a local installer. If you don't, I'd just check reviews and go with a HVAC contractor with a good reputation.

We used to install a lot of radiant cooling systems already back in the 90ies when I was still working as an HVAC engineer before switching to software development. Mostly for commercial buildings like banks, offices and museums. It might be too expensive in residential homes but also in Switzerland we usually don’t do a lot of active cooling for residential properties.

Radiant cooling is definitely the most comfortable way to cool. In addition, it only requires small pipes for air circulation as the air is not used for the actual cooling. Thus less issues with drafts and space requirements.

If I would build my own home and money isn’t tight then I would definitely go for a radiant cooling system.

Thought you need to find a company with experience installing those systems. Since moving to the US I mostly see split systems. I’m not sure how many contractor here have experience with radiant coling systems.

In a tropical swamp like florida, you'd quickly get overwhelmed by humidity (reducing comfort).

You will need to dehumidify the air inside the building. But the building structure needs to be good. You can’t have gaps or isolation issues. Your right, the average home won’t be set-up for this.

I was thinking about the same thing about Georgia. Sweating pipes and humidity is not good. It’s been 90% humidity outside even in the 70s and I’m still fighting 65%+ inside.

FWIW, I live in a pretty cold climate (dips below -30C every year) where a lot of people do use heat pumps. They just lose efficiency at low temps and have to rely on resistive heating.

AC is not very common, so that might play a factor. The efficiency loss is more acceptable if it means you can get some cooling in the summer.

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